Oh patent wars, is there any mellow you can't harsh? A German court just ruled in Apple's favor on a patent that could, theoretically, force Moto to destroy a bunch of its devices. My crystal ball says that won't happen.

The court found that Motorola Mobility infringed upon EU Patent No. EP2059868, which is the way that photos kinda bounce back when you're zoomed in on them and you over-scroll. FOSS Patents says that that the ruling could force Moto to throw tons of phones onto a pyre and set them ablaze:

If Apple enforces the ruling, it can even require Motorola to destroy any infringing products in its possession in Germany and recall, at MMI's expense, any infringing products from German retailers in order to have them destroyed as well.

Is it just me, or is that totally insane? This isn't a hardware patent, it's software, so why would devices need to be destroyed? And before it comes to that, don't you think Motorola would just push a simple software update? Yeah, so does Moto. It already told Bloomberg that it has "implemented a new way to view photos". Obviously, that will be on new devices going forward, and if older devices are being threatened they'll probably just push the fix in a quick over-the-air update.

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Sidenote:

Dear Germany,

Why have you become the go-to place for frivolous patent lawsuits? Please just get back to making awesome chocolate, sausage, and beer and stop wasting everybody's time. Thanks!

Today's ruling in Munich, Germany on the patent litigation brought by Apple concerns a software feature associated with performing certain functions when viewing photos in a ‘zoomed in' mode on mobile devices. We note that the Court ruled that performing the functions in a ‘zoomed out' mode does not infringe on this patent. We expect no impact to supply or future sales as we have already implemented a new way to view photos on our products that does not interfere with the user experience.

Way to go, Apple. You successfully spent a crapton of money for nothing.